


Redo Redid Redone

by dembones



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-06
Updated: 2014-04-06
Packaged: 2018-01-18 10:16:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1424800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dembones/pseuds/dembones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s never too late to start over, to redo. This is Patrick Kane’s life redone.</p><p>Written for the <a href="http://hockey-rbb.livejournal.com/">Hockey RBB</a> and inspired by artwork created by withlightning/<a href="http://biggestbeautyoftheleague.tumblr.com">biggestbeautyoftheleague</a>, <a href="http://biggestbeautyoftheleague.tumblr.com/post/81889217507/hockey-reverse-big-bang-art-this-is-the-second">found here</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Redo Redid Redone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [withlightning](https://archiveofourown.org/users/withlightning/gifts).



> I took this piece on as a pinch hit, half because of the artwork, and half because of the tagline. I've always loved fics that deal with one of the guys taking a different path in life, especially if the endgame is still the same. 
> 
> I sincerely hope that withlightning likes it, and that I did her artwork justice. Please go check it out, because it's amazing. 
> 
> I want to say a massive thank you to tempe-toews and johnnybabechuk for editing this thing for me at the last minute. You both are godsends, and I don't deserve either of you!

Everything is fuzzy and opaque, and he feels like his brain is working slower than it should. He can feel twinges of pain, but he can’t tell exactly where they are coming from. He has a feeling that’s a good thing.

 

He can hear talking to the left of him, though, so Pat slowly opens his eyes and looks in the direction of the voices. He’s in what looks like a hospital bed, and his parents are seated to the left of him, talking quietly. He has to work to open his mouth and make his voice work, and it hurts like he hasn’t used his vocal chords in a few days.

“Mom?”

 

His mom jerks her face around before she leaps out of her seat so that she can bend over and stroke his face. “Hi baby, how are you feeling?” 

 

“What happened?”

 

“What do you remember, Pat?”

 

Not a whole lot, truthfully. 

 

Talking through it with his parents, Pat remembers being in the car, but not the crash itself. His parents give him the bare bones rundown of what happened: a driver ran a red light and slammed into Pat’s side of the car, which explains why his injuries are concentrated on his right side. Jordan, who’d been driving, apparently made it out with some minor scrapes and bruises.

 

His door collapsed inward, and his right innominate and femur essentially shattered from the force of the impact and weight of the metal crashing into him. His right ulna is also broken at the elbow, and his arm and legs are both in full casts as a result. He’s got stitches all over from the broken glass, and his face is a mess of cuts and bruises.

 

Pat looks half dead, which is exactly how he feels.

 

The doctor comes in around then to check on him and run a couple tests, and he reiterates what Pat’s parents have already told him.

 

Pat knows it’s serious, but he’s already focused elsewhere. Namely, hockey. And more importantly: the NHL entry draft. “So how long am I going to be stuck with the casts? A few weeks? A month?”

 

Apparently not. “I’m afraid that all depends on how well you’re healing. It could be closer to six weeks, possibly even longer with the unilateral hip spica cast. However once you’ve been freed of those, we’ll be placing a walking cast on your leg and a brace on your arm, to stabilize it. You’ll be able to start your rehabilitation at that time to start rebuilding your strength in your limbs, and you’ll be able to move around more freely.”

 

Pat feels a sense of dread. He’d known it wouldn’t exactly be walking out of here 100%, but this sounds like a long process. Too long. “What about the draft?”

 

His parents shoot a look at each other, and Pat knows he’s going to hate the next words to come out of their mouth.  


“Pat,” his dad says. “You’re not going to make it to the draft. I’m sorry, kiddo.”

 

Pat feels like he wants to throw up and cry at the same time. His whole life, the draft is what he dreamed of. Everything this year and the last few years has been building up to it. He’s met with scouts from every single team. He’s supposed to get drafted in the first round, possibly as one of the top three. And now none of it’s going to happen?

 

The doctor clears his throat, and Pat is thrown back into reality as he looks up at the man standing at the foot of the bed. “Mr. Kane, I think you should know. Your injuries might be severe, but with proper physical therapy you should regain full use and movement. Returning to professional playing condition, however…it might not be possible, and even if it is, it will be a long road. I understand that your aspiration is apparently to play sports professionally, but I think right now you need to take this one step at a time.”

 

Pat’s not an idiot, alright? He can read the writing on the wall. He’s seen guys who have had injuries this severe before, and they’re never heard from again in the hockey world.

 

Pat just went from being the potential first overall draft to undrafted in the course of a day.

 

And then Pat does throw up.

 

\--

 

The draft passes, and Pat watches it from the couch surrounded by his family.

 

When James Van Riemsdyk is chosen first overall by the Chicago Blackhawks, Pat clenches his fists and tries not to think about what could have been.

 

\--

 

Pat starts his physical therapy at the end of June, and it’s a constant battle to force down the voices telling him he’s never going to be able to play hockey again.

 

It feels like every single movement is twice as hard as it should be, and his body is actively working against him. Pat has always been in fantastic shape, and he knows his body in and out. The body that he’s currently stuck with feels like it belongs to someone else, someone smaller and less coordinated. It doesn’t fit right, like the rental suit he wore for his aunt’s wedding a few years back, the one he had to keep tugging back into place when it pinched him in certain areas.

 

So physical therapy sucks, basically. Pat’s ready to be done with it as soon as he starts.

 

\--

 

Pat sticks with it, though, and however much he hates it, however frustrating it is to have to retrain himself to complete movements that used to come naturally to him, it’s worth it in the end.

 

Days and weeks pass, and slowly Pat gets better. Eventually he regains the full rotation in his arm and leg, and shortly after that he’s finally able to start lifting weights. It’s embarrassing, the weights that he has to start out on, but eventually he works himself back up to where he was pre-accident.

 

Pat doesn’t get on the ice until September has already dawned, though, and as a result he misses training camp with the Knights, as well as the preseason.

 

When Pat finally does start skating with the team, it’s like a punch to the head. All this time, Pat had it in his head that as long as he followed his physical therapy and worked himself back into shape, everything else would fall into place. He’d convinced himself that going back to hockey wouldn’t be an issue.

 

Instead, Pat goes out with the team to skate, and finds that his hands are quite as smooth and quick as they used to be, and his legs have forgotten what a deke even is, let alone a spinorama.

 

It’s a minor setback in the grand scheme of things, but it means Pat’s season starts with less than a whimper. It starts with silence.

 

When he finally steps onto the ice for a regular season game, he feels like he might as well have not even been there, for all the good he did. Pat ends the game without a single point, though he does have a +1.

 

It’s disheartening, to say the least.

 

His second game back goes a little better, and he’s at least able to tally an assist.

Unfortunately, his less-than-stellar return has turned into fodder for the sports journalists, who were already focusing entirely too much on Pat in the first place, speculating on if he’d lost his abilities, if he’d ever be the hockey player he was primed to be. The start to his season only reinforces the critics, and silences many of the supporters.

 

Slowly but surely, however, Pat’s games pick up, and by the start of the new year Pat has gone on a little point streak. It’s nothing close to the 145 point season of last year, but at least Pat is putting points on the board, and proving he still deserves a spot on the ice.

 

As another bonus, the critics have stopped talking so much about if he’s still worth a spot on the team, but most are still too hesitant to speculate about his chances in the draft. Pat’s not an idiot, he knows he’s not going to go first overall this year. But his game has been improving daily, and he really can feel himself settle in to the style of play he was known for before the accident.

 

Pat scores a hat trick in the last week of January, and sets off on a multi-point game streak for the entirety of February. Finally, finally, _finally_ people are starting to talk positively about his chances for the future. Finally people are starting to believe that he still has what it takes. The only question that remains is if it’s enough.

 

Through it all, Pat watches as many NHL games as he can, and can’t help but pay a little more attention to the Chicago Blackhawks. Jonathan Toews made his debut this year, and he’s just as good as everyone thought he would be. Better, maybe. The guy scores on his first shot in his first game in the NHL, for fucks sake. Van Riemsdyk also made his debut, and he’s been solid but not a stand-out start like Toews is.

 

Perhaps the most frustrating thing of all, though, is just how easy it is to imagine himself on Toews’ wing. How easy it is to imagine receiving some of those passes Toews makes that no one else can quite seem to catch. He vividly remembers Toews’ playing from World Juniors, and the guy has only gotten better. It’s scary to think about how much better he’s going to get over the years, and it makes Pat a little bitter to think about how he should have been right there alongside Toews, wearing that Indian head.

 

\--

 

In March, Pat makes his way to the scouting combine. He tests well, but not great. He talks with a few teams, but the lack of excitement is such a stark contrast to the last time he was building up to the draft that it just ends up leaving Pat feeling sad and achey. None of this has gone how it was supposed to.

 

\--

 

The Knights finish out their season and head into the playoffs ready to snatch a cup. They don’t, in the end, but they do get another Midwest division title, which is nice. Pat isn’t awarded with any individual awards this time, but that’s fine. He’s already focused forward on the draft and his potential NHL career.

 

\--

 

On the day of the 2008 NHL entry draft, Pat does not wake up nauseas, contrary to popular belief. He doesn’t throw up, or wake up exhausted from tossing and turning all night. He’s able to eat breakfast just fine, and talk normally with his family, though they stay clear of any discussion regarding the event set to occur in a few hours.

 

Instead, Pat wakes up with a sense of dread, and it follows him throughout the day. It’s not enough to distract him or throw him off his game. It’s just a low-level sense of foreboding and certainty that today is not going to go anything like 2007 was supposed to. He is not going to get picked first overall like the scouts had forecasted. He’s not going to go to the Blackhawks like he was so certain of before.

 

He’s probably not even going to go in the first round.

 

Pat is honest with himself, and he knows the reality. He knows in his heart that he is still the same skater he was before the accident. He still has soft hands, and he can still speed across the ice and deke around any opponent he faces. He knows this like he knows his parents love him.

 

It’s everyone else that doesn’t know it anymore.

 

It doesn’t matter that he’s been back on the ice for almost two months. That he quickly went back to scoring big goals within a couple of games. That he tested really well at the combine. None of that matters, because his name and face were splashed across all the major hockey media outlets after the accident, along with the picture of the car. Everyone knows how bad his injuries were, and that he’d pushed it to come back as quickly as he had.

 

He’s a risk. Pat knows it. He just needs someone to see that he’s a risk worth taking. That he’s just getting back into his rhythm and it’s only going to get better.

 

\--

 

The nerves finally start to push at him as the minutes count down to the beginning of the draft. Tampa Bay has the first overall choice this year, and everyone’s talking about how Steven Stamkos is a lock. Absolutely no one is talking about Patrick Kane as a top draft choice this year.

 

Bettman makes his speech and Pat tries to stay still while the nerves keep climbing, and then it’s time.

 

The Tampa Bay GM gets up on the podium and less than a minute later Steven Stamkos is named as the first overall draft pick. Pat claps along with everyone else as he watches Stamkos hug his family and head to the podium to pull on his jersey and cap, and forces down the melancholy he can feel just below the surface.

 

After that it’s the LA Kings who pick Drew Doughty, just as predicted. After him, Zach Bogosian is drafted by the Thrashers instead of Luke Schenn in the first upset of draft projections, and Schenn ends up dropping to number five.

 

The Blackhawks have the eleventh pick this year, a result of their newly improved team, thanks largely in part to Jonathan Toews and James Van Riemsdyk, drafted in place of Pat. Pat again feels the brief sting of what might have been. Maybe it was cockiness, but Pat knew in his bones that he was going to become a Blackhawks at that draft. He had felt as certain of it as he’d felt of anything in his life. It was so easy to imagine, playing with Toews, who’d gotten so much better than he’d been back when they were kids. The two of them, on an original six team. It was going to be amazing.

 

Instead, James van Riemsdyk is on a line with Toews, and the Hawks are slowly working their way back.

 

The Hawks end up taking Kyle Beach as this first round pick, and Pat feels something in him clench a little bit. He’d known it wasn’t likely to happen. He’d met with the Hawks’ scouts a couple of times in recent months, but they’d been honest about his potential liability. Yes, his play had picked up and he’d ended the season on a high note, looking almost exactly as he had before the accident, but he knows as well as anyone how vulnerable a player is after their first major injury. Who knows how it might affect them down the road?

 

The rest of the first round passes fairly quickly, and Pat slumps over a little when it’s over. It’s not like getting drafted in a later round is the end of the world, but you’re definitely a lot less likely to ever become a star in the NHL when you’re drafted later. Not everyone can be Pavel Datsyuk or Henrik Lundqvist, and go from forgotten draft pick to NHL star. Pat doesn’t even want to think about what’ll happen if he doesn’t get drafted at all.

 

The second round passes quicker than the first, and Pat remains seated next to his family. He can tell his parents and sisters are upset, but Pat just remains staring straight ahead.

 

The third round begins and Pat watches the Sharks make their pick, followed by the Kings, and then the Thrashers, and the Blues, and the Islanders. The Flyers are up after the Islanders, and they pick David Toews, Jonathan Toews’ little brother. He looks over at the announcement, a little curious, and sees Jonathan Toews hugging David.

 

After that it’s time for the Blackhawks once again, their second pick of the draft, having traded their second round pick away. Pat watches Jonathan Toews head to the podium, and feels himself tense. If the shiny new captain of the Hawks is naming their next draft pick, then it must be good.

 

There’s nothing to say the Hawks even still want him, a couple of meetings aside, but Pat can’t help but hope that they brought Toews on stage so that they could draft Pat.

 

Toews clears his throat, and Pat stills. He doesn’t actually realize that he’s been picked until his parents are jumping up and pulling him up with them so that they can hug them. As he walks to the stage in a daze, he looks up at the podium and sees Toews still up there, smiling slightly at Pat. He’s got a weird expression on his face, like he’s both nervous and excited, though Pat guesses that makes sense.

 

Toews is the first one that Pat gets to up on the podium, and Pat finds himself tucked into a quick hug. The buzzing in his ears almost drowns it out, but Pat can still make out the quiet, “You and I are going to prove everyone wrong, and we’re going to do it together.”

 

Pat doesn’t try to fight the smile that breaks out, just nods at Toews in affirmation as they pull away, and turns and accepts the handshakes from the other Hawks staff. He’s given his jersey and cap, and he dons them on autopilot. He’s not sure what his face looks like in the photo that’s taken, but he can’t imagine he looks good.

 

And that’s it. A year and three rounds later than he thought he would be, Patrick Kane is drafted into the NHL.

 

\--

 

Training camp with the Hawks isn’t really any different than training with the Knights or the USA Development team. Pat’s so anxious that he ends up being the first one in the locker room, and he’s already changed and waiting by the time the next guy shows up.

 

It’s a little odd being the newbie again, but the guys are all welcoming, and Pat gets on with Sharp and Burish from pretty much the word ‘go’. Sharpy and Burs are the ones to watch out for with pranks, but they take him out to lunch a couple days in, so Pat can deal with some shaving cream in his gloves.

 

Seeing Toews again is a little weird, but good. He still thinks about Toews’ words to him at the draft, and he likes to think of them when he starts freaking out. All Toews does when he sees Pat, though, is smile at him from across the room. He quirks an eyebrow at something, though Pat isn’t sure what until they’re heading towards the rink for practice, and Toews comes up beside him.

 

“Nice to see you’ve graduated from those stupid flip flops you used to wear everywhere. Seriously, who wears flip flops in the snow?”

 

It takes a few seconds for Pat to get it, at which point they’re already all out on the ice, and he has to raise his voice a little bit to reach Toews. “Seriously, dude? We were 13. You cannot chirp me for my footwear from when I was 13, that’s just lame.”

 

Toews just smirks at him as he skates away, and Pat finds himself helpless to resist his own smile.

 

He and Toews—Jonny—end up on a line together by the end of practice, and it’s just running drills, but it’s everything that Pat had always known it could be.  It’s like he can sense when Jonny’s about to send a pass to him, or he knows just where Jonny wants him to be to set up a shot. Pat can _feel_ how good they could be together, and he can tell Jonny can too, by the way he can’t suppress a grin when he and Pat head off the ice together.

 

“We’re gonna do it.” Jonny doesn’t say anything more than that, but he doesn’t really need to.

 

\--

 

Getting changed in and out of his gear is a little different, now. He’s changed around teammates since the accident, with the Knights, but he’d known them all before the accident, and he knew they wouldn’t make a big deal out of it if he made it clear he didn’t want to talk about it.

 

Here, there are a bunch of guys he doesn’t know or only know loosely at this point on his first day, and either they don’t know what happened to him, or even worse, they do. And either way, they’re probably going to end up looking at his scars.

 

They really aren’t that bad, considering how bad the accident was. But they’re bad enough. He’s got little scars all along his upper right side from the glass. There’s a long scar on his elbow about four inches long where they had to actually cut him open to screw his elbow back together.

 

His leg is the worst, though. The metal that crushed his bones was also sharp enough to pierce the skin, and he has a long jagged scar that crosses his hip and runs unevenly down the outside of his right thigh. It’s pretty obviously not a neat surgical scar from a routine procedure, and it’s also obviously relatively fresh. It hasn’t faded in color yet, and while it’s not as raised as it once was, you can still see that the skin is uneven where it’s discolored.

 

It catches your eye, and that’s not something Pat wants.

 

The guys must have more tact than Pat gave them credit for, though, because they don’t say anything to Pat while he’s getting changed out of his gear. They don’t ask about it in the showers or while they’re putting on street clothes, so Pat lets himself relax.

 

A bunch of the guys want to get a late lunch together after practice, as a sort of get-to-know-you-better thing, and Pat tags along. They head to a place close to the UC that serves burgers and sandwiches, and Pat finds himself with Sharpy on one side and Jonny on the other.

 

Jonny opens his mouth to say something at one point, hesitates, and then closes it and turns to pick up his drink.

 

Pat tilts his head and smiles a little. “You can ask. Promise not to get pissed.”

 

Jonny shoots him a look like he’s thinking about denying it, and then nods. “Do you- Does it hurt?”

 

He looks so concerned that Pat can’t help but answer honestly. “Sometimes. It aches if I don’t stretch well enough, or if the weather changes too quickly my elbow will hurt for a bit. The scars themselves don’t anymore, though. It’s just hardened tissue, really. Nothing an appointment with a good physical therapist and massage therapist won’t fix.”

 

Jonny nods, and the crease between his eyebrows loosens a little. “Good. And thanks. For telling me, I mean. You didn’t have to.”

 

Pat shrugs. “Just don’t look at me weird in the locker room and we’re cool.”

 

\--

 

The rest of camp goes well, or so Pat thinks. The coaches all seem relatively pleased with his playing style at least.

 

He usually ends up hanging out with Sharpy and Burish after practice, sometimes Ladd and Versteeg and Byfuglien. He and Jonny trade phone numbers though, and he ends up talking with Jonny most out of anybody on the team. Toews is a serious guy on the ice, but he’s a massive fucking dork off of it, turns out, and he’s also a big fan of texting.

 

No matter how well he skated during training camp it isn’t enough, though, and the coaches pull him aside after the last day to tell him that they like his skating, but they want him to start off in Rockford so he can get some more practice in.

 

Rockford isn’t ideal, obviously, but it’s also nothing to sneeze at. There are good players in the AHL, and a lot of great NHLers have started in the AHL, so Pat just has to focus on improving his game until he’s better than he was even before the accident, so that he can work himself onto the Hawks. There’s no way he’s going to give up after having a taste of his dream.

 

\--

 

The guys in Rockford are pretty great, all told, and playing on the Ice Hogs doesn’t feel too much like a downgrade. The guys are all serious about winning, and they all have the same goal: get a spot on the Hawks roster.

 

A lot of the guys are too young to drink, so they can’t go out to any bars, but the older guys like to invite everyone over for get together on off-days. Pat usually goes and has a good time, but a couple of times he leaves early when Jonny calls and wants to catch up.

 

That’s one of the more surprising things to come out of training camp. He kinda figured Sharpy wasn’t the sort of guy to lose contact once he had you in his grasp, but Jonny is so focused during the season that he seems like the sort of guy who would let texting fall by the wayside, but he’s so genuine and good a friend that no one minds. Turns out that’s not the case, however, and Jonny still texts him at least once a day.

 

When the guys figure out it’s not a girlfriend back home, but the captain of the Hawks that Pat is always texting with, they tease him about becoming a mini-captain serious, or chirp him about sucking up to Jonny so he’ll get a spot on the team. Pat chirps them right back, but the truth is that he and Jonny rarely even discuss hockey when they talk.

 

Jonny likes to ask him about his day, but once the hockey part is over they’ll transition into things they’ve watched, or what they ate, what they’re going to do with their free time. It reminds Pat a lot of the conversations he had with his ex-girlfriend, actually, and it makes his cheeks flush red whenever he thinks of it.

 

He’s never really had a crush on a guy before, never even seriously considered that he might be gay, or bi. The way he feels when he talks to Jonny, though, that feels too familiar to ignore. And when he talks it over with his sisters, they’re quick to tell him he’s got a crush. They don’t even seem to care about the part where it’s a guy he has a crush on, and it goes a long way towards easing Pat’s nerves about the whole thing.

 

It doesn’t really matter either way, though, because nothing is ever going to come of it but friendship. Jonny almost certainly doesn’t see him as anything more than a friend, has never let on at least. And he has no idea if Jonny even likes guys.

 

So, Pat slowly comes to terms with having a massive crush on one of the guys he’s starting to consider his best friend, and he moves on.

 

\--

 

The Hawks are a month into the regular season when Van Riemsdyk goes down hard and into the net, breaking his leg. Pat’s watching the game when it happens, and he flinches when they show the replay of the whole thing. Legs are _not_ supposed to bend that way.

 

Still, he can’t help but feel a little bit of guilty happiness when he gets called up the next day. Sharpy texts him pretty much immediately following the call, and offers up the spare room in his place.

 

Pat packs his bags in twenty minutes flat, and he’s out the door and heading up to Chicago in thirty.

 

\--

 

Playing with the Hawks is even better than he’d imagined it would be. It’s also more terrifying. Everything is faster, harder, more intense up here in the NHL. Pat thrives on it.

 

He gets put on a line with Jonny, and he can tell by Jonny’s pleased little grin that he’s happy about it. Pat’s pleased about it too, and he can’t help but find himself smiling at Jonny at random points on the bench. When they aren’t yelling at each other, at least. Which is something Pat had not expected, considering how well they get along off the ice. But it works for them, oddly enough. They yell at each other almost non-stop, but it’s a lot of it is suggestions that end up working out, and Pat knows there’s no heat to any of the words. The others give them weird looks at first, but by the end of the game they seem to have shrugged it off and taken it as another one of their captain’s quirks.

 

They win the game 4-3, and even though Pat doesn’t get a goal, he’s able to notch an assist on Jonny’s goal, and he feels good.

 

\--

 

Pat gets his first goal during his third game with the Hawks. It’s off a pass from Jonny, of course, and it’s an absolute beauty. Jonny seems more excited than even Pat is, when they go in for the celly, and Pat feels the lightest he’s ever been.

 

He did it.

 

\--

 

Pat stays up with the Hawks for the duration of Van Riemsdyk’s injury. When he’s finally cleared for play, though, Pat finds himself heading back down to the AHL.

 

Jonny looks like a kicked puppy when he finds out Pat’s going back to Rockford, but all he does is hug Pat and tell him that Pat’ll be back in no time at all.

 

And it turns out he’s right, in a way. They finish out the season on their respective teams, and Pat watches the Hawks make the playoffs, only to fall in the conference finals to the Red Wings.

 

Pat sends his condolences to Jonny, and all Jonny says back is that it wasn’t the right time. Whatever that means. And then Jonny texts him again asking if he wants to come up and watch the finals together, and Pat once again packs a bag and heads up to Chicago.

 

\--

 

Van Riemsdyk is traded to the Leafs in the off-season, and at first Pat is too afraid to even speculate about what it could mean for him. Jonny seems pretty convinced he’s going to get a spot on the team, but Pat doesn’t want to get his hopes up.

 

He gets called into the main office a couple days later, though, and it turns out he absolutely could get his hopes up.

 

 Pat calls his parents on the drive back to Jonny’s place so that he can give them the good news, and he has to sit in his car for a few minutes once he’s parked, so his parents can finish up the praise and congratulations. Eventually he hangs up with them, though, and speed walks his way through the entrance to Jonny’s building, waits anxiously while the elevator takes him up to the appropriate floor, and practically sprints to Jonny’s front door. He lets himself in and follows the sound of running water to find Jonny in the kitchen.

 

“They offered me a spot on the Hawks! I’m up for good, Jonny! I made it.” Pat still feels a little lightheaded, and he can’t keep the massive grin off his face.

 

Jonny turns from where he’d been washing dishes at the sink and grins at Pat. “So you’re a full-fledged Hawk, now? Here for good?”

 

“Yep. Unless they trade me away, I’m here to stay, baby!”

 

Jonny heads over to where Pat’s standing, and he expects to be pulled into one of Jonny’s hugs. What he gets is even better, though. When he gets close enough, Jonny reaches for him with hands that are still damp from the dishes, and cups Patrick’s face. He looks at Pat for a second, like he’s confirming something, and then he’s leaning in and Pat feels lips brush lightly against his.  They stay that way for a few seconds, just lightly brushing their lips against one another.

 

Jonny starts to pull back, and Pat finds himself bringing one hand up to wind around the back of Jonny’s neck, pulling him back in. He presses his lips more firmly against Jonny’s before deepening the kiss. Jonny just goes with it, and moves his arms to wrap around Pat.

 

When they finally part, Jonny just smiles softly at Pat. “We’re gonna be great.”

 

Pat can’t help but roll his eyes a little, even as he laughs. “Of course we are. We’re Kane and Toews.”

 

“Toews and Kane, you mean.”

 

\--

 

Playing on the Hawks is even better when you know you won’t be going anywhere. It doesn’t hurt to play on a line with the guy you’re falling in love with, either.

 

The Hawks start their season off with a loss in Helsinki, but they quickly find their footing and then they’re winning games. And through it all, he’s right there by Jonny’s side, just like he always knew he should be.

 

\--

 

“We’re gonna do it,” Jonny tells him one day. They’re on the bench in the middle of a game against the Canucks, and they’re down by one. Pat has no clue what Jonny is talking about.

 

“What? Win the game? Fuckin’ right we are,” Pat answers.

 

But Jonny’s shaking his head. “No. Well, that too. No, we’re gonna do it. We’re gonna go all the way. We’re gonna bring the Cup back to Chicago.”

 

Pat can only stare at Jonny and his intensely serious face. Pat can tell that he’s absolutely certain of it. Jonny thinks they’re going to get the Cup.

 

“Is that right?” Pat asks with a grin.

 

Jonny smirks. “Yeah. And we’re gonna do it more than once.”

 

Then Jonny’s hopping over the boards and Pat’s getting up to follow him.

 

\--

 

It turns out that Jonny actually can predict the future, because three months later they’re standing in Philly while Jonny tells him he loves him as he’s holding the Conn Smythe, and then they’re hoisting the cup together.

 

And then they do it again a few years later.

 

And again.

 

And again.


End file.
